Trump is extremely stupid knowledge wise. He is smart when it comes to being a conniving SOB.

[shockey80]

You can tell Trump knows nothing about science, history, the solar system. He does not care. He only cared about learning to be a conniving major league asshole his entire life.

It is amazing that his approach to life has never betrayed him. Sent him to prison. Not yet anyways.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. He got away with it because he had money, or at least the appearance of it

(most of the time it was other people's money), and he elbowed his way into the NYC social scene in the '80s and made a lot of people think he was a player. The authorities in NYC pretty much ignored his corruption because everybody knows real estate developers are mobbed up and corrupt but if he did development deals that benefited the city, so what?

[shockey80]

2. Money and lawyers.

Rudy must have ignored a lot of things Trump was doing. That's why he is protecting him so much.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. His motivation seems to be in gyping others.

[unblock]

6. please reconsider your word choice....

https://www.thoughtco.com/terms-many-dont-know-are-racist-2834522

"Gypped" is arguably the most commonly used racist term in existence today. If someone buys a used car that turns out to be lemon, for instance, he may complain, “I got gypped.” So, why is the term offensive? Because it equates the Gypsy, or Roma peoples, with being thieves, cheats and con artists. When someone says that they “got gypped,” they are essentially saying that they were conned.

Explained Jake Bowers, editor of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ezine Travellers Times, to the British newspaper the Telegraph: “Gypped is an offensive word, it is derived from Gypsy and it’s being used in the same context as a person might once have said they ‘jewed’ somebody if they did an underhand business transaction.”

But don’t take Bowers’ word for it. If you’re still debating whether or not to use the verb “gypped,” consider that Philip Durkin, the principal etymologist at the "Oxford English Dictionary" told the Telegraph that there is a “scholarly consensus” that the word originated as a “racial slur.”

[Maraya1969]

9. I never knew this. Thanks for bringing it up.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Ponzi Don or Con Job Don,

is a self created Reality TV Personality in the mold of his idol PT Barnum. As per a couple of Bio's written on him,Barnum was his likeness,and we all know people who love to be Groupies. As a kid,a made man from Chi Town called it Coat Tailing.

Roy Cohn kept the truth for being exposed for decades.

[FakeNoose]

5. Being a bully isn't the same thing as being "smart"

I wouldn't ever call Chump smart, but he's really good at being a bully. He's learned it from his father and he's passed the knowledge on to his sons. It's not something that Americans should celebrate or congratulate him for IMHO.

[Nuggets]

11. +1 nt

[JI7]

7. he isn't smart in either way. he speaks to shitty type people

[shockey80]

8. He is smart in a twisted way.

That's how he survived. That piece of shit should have been in prison a long time ago with all the stupid shit he was doing.

[ooky]

10. It all flows down from him being lazy.

His father's money ruined him by making him lazy early in life, by making it so he never had to earn anything on his own. So he didn't have to work for anything, and he doesn't like to work, so he has never read books, which rendered him ignorant about everything going on around him. And this ignorance led to him lying and making up things to "appear smart",always seeking ways to get around the system and his own ignorance, thus the cheating, lying, conniving con man he has lived his life as.

He thinks about lying as a "life skill".

[marylandblue]

12. People don't recognize smartness when it comes in unconventional forms.

He doesn't do anything that most smart people do, like read books or create new ideas. Instead he put all of his brain power into one single activity - manipulating people.

So he spent his entire life learning how to get what he wants through manipulating people, until he could manipulate enough people to become President. You have to be a genius to accomplish so much with so little actual work.

[librechik]

13. because he cares more about hurting people than anything else.Really.

It's not enough for him to succeed, which is a given, of course.There is NO WAY Trump could be wrong.

The real payoff comes from watching others fail and suffer.

Typical sociopathic/psychopathic dick move.

[rockfordfile]

14. It doesn't take "smarts" to "He is smart when it comes to being a conniving SOB"